I sent the following about 7 days ago, but it appears never to
have
arrived on the CLUG server, and meanwhile I lost contact with CLUG -
some incompatibility of Clear's and Farmside's mail servers. Apologies
if you've all read the following already.
===
Some months back there were some enquiries about getting the Vodem
(Huawei E220 HSDPA USB modem) running in Linux. I thought I'd relate my
modest success with that project.
I'm on the second of (what I expect to be) a series of short term
contracts away from home base. I didn't want to keep paying for
unneeded landlines and early disconnection penalties just to maintain my
Internet access.
I have no copy of Windows at all. The Vodem is mounted on a Dell
Latitude D520 running Ubuntu Edgy.
After trying and failing with some of the methods suggested on the
Ubuntu boards, I found the driver
vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux
at https://forge.vodafonebetavine.net/projects/vodafonemobilec/ (click
on Downloads). I downloaded version 0.9.7.3 and installed it via dpkg
-i.
In order to run, before the driver is booted, the usb-storage driver
module has to be removed, and the usbserial driver module replaced, as
follows. Eject the CD-ROM1 icon that appears on the Desktop when the
Vodem is attached to the USB port (or when the computer is powered up
with the Vodem already attached). It does NOT seem to be necessary to
unplug and replug the Vodem. Then
sudo rmmod usb-storage
sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1003
Installing the .deb package will have left the driver as an item in the
Applications menu. The driver will not work as installed. The key is
in the Tools > Preferences menu. In the stock installation, the network
is set to ac.vodafone.es (makes sense; the driver is from Spain). It
must be set to www.vodafone.net.nz to work in New Zealand.
I say "modest" success because I'm running only at GPRS speed (i.e.
pathetically slowly) at present, but I'm right now in a fringe area of
Hamilton where there is no 3G broadband and apparently no 3G reception
at all.
===
Subsequent to all the above I've written a shell script to unmount the
Vodem as a CD-ROM, change the usb modules as above and launch the Vodem
driver. I'd like to be able to run it other than in a terminal but
haven't got that sussed out yet.
=====Andrew
